


hyperanthea excerpta

by Xaidread



Category: Metamorphoses - Apuleius, Pharsalia - Fandom, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Iliad - Homer
Genre: Gen, Translation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 15:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15585333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xaidread/pseuds/Xaidread
Summary: Prettied-up pieces from my readings





	1. Table of Contents

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I turn out a really good rendering into English.  
> (It should go without saying, but please don't use these for your homework unless you're investigating something about amateurs' approaches to translation. That would be a cool interview piece, but please ask for permission before bringing my translations into classroom discussions.)

Format: Author, Title, Section

  1. Table of Contents [you are here]
  2. Homer, The Iliad 1.1-16
  3. Apuleius, Metamorphoses 1.8.4-5
  4. The Pearl Poet, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight vv.1-36
  5. Lucan, Pharsalia 1.262-64




	2. Iliad 1.1-16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get the Greek at [Perseus Digital Library](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0133%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D1).  
> Gotta say, an antiquarian slant really fits epic.

Sing the wrath, O Goddess, of Peleus-born Achilles,  
the baneful thing which arranged untold anguish for the Achaeans,  
and sent many mighty souls of heroes to Hades.  
Sing of the men it handed over as harvest for savage hounds  
and furnished feasts for feathered flocks—thus Zeus' will was fulfilled.  
Begin from the time they first stood at odds and vied with one another,  
both the Atreus-born Master of Men and godlike Achilles.

So who of the gods in discord set them together for quarreling?  
T'was Leto's Zeus-seeded son, for he, outraged by a king,  
sent painful plague through the camps, and contenders were dying  
for sake of Chryses the Devout, whom the son of Atreus did dishonor  
as he came up to the swift ships of the Achaeans  
ransoming his daughter, bearing an infinite ransom,  
holding in hand the suppliant's chaplets of Far-Darter Apollo  
wrapped 'round a scepter gold-bound; thus did he beseech the Achaean band whole,  
and the double Atreus-born army-arrayers above all.


	3. Metamorphoses 1.8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get the Latin at [Perseus Digital Library](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0502%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D8)

And [Socrates] says, "She's a wisewoman and mighty in magic: she can draw down heaven and hang up the earth, freeze fountains and melt the mountains, raise the shades and lay low the divines, douse out the stars and even belight Tartarus itself!"

"Puh-lease," says I. "Roll up those drapes of tragedy! Stow the sit-com shit! Shut your yap and make way for plain speech!"


	4. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight vv. 1-36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get the Middle English on the [Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/Gawain/1:1?rgn=div1;view=fulltext)  
> I spent June 2016 working out the poem's original language from the TGD edition as well five different published translations and four other glossaries. I didn't make perfection out of all 2525+5 verses, but I think the first two stanzas turned out pretty good.

Since the siege and the assault was ceased at Troy,  
the burg busted and burnt to brands and ashes  
the trooper that the trammels of treason there wrought  
was tried for his treachery, the truest on earth:  
it was Aeneas the noble and his high-born kin,  
who since depressed provinces and patrons became  
well-nigh of all the wealth in the West Isles,  
from which royal Romulus to Rome rushes him swiftly,  
with great boasting that burg he builds upon first,  
and names it his own name, as it now has;  
Tatius to Tuscany and townships built,  
Langobard in Lombardy lifts up homes,  
and far over the French flood Felix Brutus  
on many banks full broad Britain he seats  
joy in,  
where war and wrack and wonder  
by shifts have wont therein,  
and oft both bliss and blunder  
full swiftly has settled since.

And when this Britain was built by this baron rich,  
the bold bred therein, battle they did love,  
in many a turned time trouble they worked.  
More things on this fold have fallen here oft  
than in any other that I know, since that like time.  
But of all that here built, of Briton kings,  
aye was Arthur the handsomest, as I have heard tell.  
Forethere an adventure on earth I aim to show,  
that a super in sight some men it hold,  
and an outrageous adventure of Arthur's wonders,  
if ye will listen this lay but one little while,  
I shall tell as it tided, as I in town heard,  
with tongue,  
as it is set and staked  
in story stout and strong,  
with lieless letters interlaced,  
in land so has been long.


	5. Pharsalia 1.262-64

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original text:  
> Ecce faces belli, dubiaeque in proelia menti  
> Urgentes addunt stimulos cunctasque pudoris  
> Rumpunt fata moras

Alliterative and slightly naughty version

Behold the firebrands of battle wavering in wars, to his will

they pile pressing pricks, and burst the stays of shame

all in a body do the fates

PG version

Behold the firebrands of battle wavering in wars,

to his courage they augment urging goads,

and burst the stays of shame all in a body do the fates


End file.
